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Changes

Well, my friends, it’s 2009, and with it I’ve made a few changes to the House of Rapp.

For one thing, you’ll notice a new theme. Let me know how you like it!

I wanted something a little more up-to-date than the 2005-era code I had cobbled together before integrated themes became popular for WordPress. The background image I’m currently using is a photo of my Pitts S-2B on a vertical upline over the old El Toro MCAS base here in Orange County.

Second, I’ve password-protected the photos section. For some reason, a lot of my site statistics and referral logs were showing huge traffic coming from sites like Myspace. Thousands of hits per day! Turns out people there were using my photos as background images. While I’m glad they enjoy my photography, they were also using a lot of bandwidth by simply linking to my files. It’s considered rude to use another person’s bandwidth to serve images to your own web site, and my requests to stop doing that were met with silence. So, a password, a few changes to the .htaccess file, and problem solved.

I also got to thinking that there are a lot of other people in my photos, and they might not want every Tom, Dick, and Harry looking at their mug on my web site. But the photos are all there, and if you’re someone I know, drop me a line and I’ll give you the username/password combo.

I hope your holidays were safe and restful, because I have a feeling we’ll be needing all the strength we can muster to endure the goodies that 2009 has to offer.

Eh — I’ll write more about that in a future post. This isn’t an economics/finance blog, of course, but that happens to be one of my interests — money also comes in handy when your aviation is your avocation! — and I don’t mind saying that I predicted the fall of the housing market right here on this blog back in 2003. So the way I see it, I should be running the Fed, Treasury, or Council of Economic Advisers!

Alas, life is not fair. So until the phone rings with that Big Offer from the Obama administration, I’ll just have to make due with the great flying, perfect weather, and unbeatable friends and family I have here in Southern California.

Thanks for the input, Grant. Yeah, I was wondering about that. I think it sort of depends on your screen resolution. I’m using a dual montior setup on my desktop, and an iPhone when mobile, so it probably looks a bit different. Is it just a preference on your part, or does the image make things hard to read?

(Sorry this is a little late, but better late than never, I guess…). Anyway, I really like the new style and layout — it’s crisp and aesthetically pleasing, and the background image is, for me at least, a nice touch that doesn’t get in the way or get distracting. The only criticism I’ve got (and this is going to sound really dumb) is that it took a fair while to work out how to access or give comments. You should probably include a text link labeled “comments” or something like that at the foot of each entry — the number on the side isn’t exactly obvious in its function…

peter wakeman

May 25, 2009 at 3:08 pm

Hi Ron,like the new layout,very good.thanks for sending my codes.all the best Peter.

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About the Author

Ron Rapp is a professional pilot, instructor, and aviation writer specializing in tailwheel, aerobatic, experimental, formation, and glass-panel flying. He's also an aircraft owner, aerobatic competitor, and a National-level judge. He and his wife live in beautiful Orange County, California with their son and an evil -- yet diabolically brilliant -- Siamese cat. (read more)